My blog, although I don’t see myself as a blogger but as a Photographer I will try to blog some interesting material during the weeks.
Expect at least 2 updates a week.

Kingsday 2023

/in /by

Today it’s Kingsday in The Netherlands.

In most cities, this is celebrated with activities ranging from concerts to flea markets on the streets.
Today in the blog some images (well actually a lot) to give you an impression of how Kingsday looks in our area.

All are shot with the Samsung Ultra 22 mobile phone, and edited in Lr with my own presets.

But first… because it’s Kingsday we also have some cool offers for our readers.

 

50% off on all my tutorials and presets

If you want more in-depth knowledge about lighting, using a light meter, coaching the model, using small strobes and studio strobes, using creativity and styling, smoke, classical masters, and a lot more…. we have a whole range of full-length tutorials covering every aspect of model photography.

But you can also get the more than seven and a half hours tutorial about Photoshop and Lightroom with tips and tricks to spice up your workflow and images. And the discount is also valid for my preset packs so you can have a head start when creating your own favorite looks.

And if travel photography is more your thing, check out the “Beyond Snaps” series.

Use coupon “King50” when checking out for a 50% discount.
www.frankdoorhof.com/shop

PS: we are cleaning the attic and soon our Dutch DVD’s will be for sale too

 

For the Dutch customers

Use coupon code “King23” for a 10% discount on our Rogue products and IQwire.

Get the great magnetic system for your speedlights/round flashes.  The super versatile FlashBender/umbrella kit or the ExpoDisc for perfect white balance. We have you covered to be creative with your lighting.

If you want to see your images straight on the iPad, laptop, or external display while shooting, IQ-wire is the perfect choice when you want a reliable tethering solution. Our cables are available in 5 and 10 meters and are the fastest 10 meters tethering cables worldwide thanks to our inline boosters and inteliconnect.

Use coupon “King23” when checking out for a 10% discount on Rogue and IQwire.
www.frankdoorhof.com/shop

 

And now as promised, some images.
Click on one of the images for gallery mode (much nicer)

 

 

Choose your angles with care

/in , /by

Walking around your model or chosing different angles can have a huge impact on your final results.

When using a striplight with a grid like I do in the examples, you can make your model jump out from the background, even when using a more busy background. And you don’t need to add a vignette later in post processing.

By moving around the model you have a great control over the contrast and look of the image. You can go from relative flat to very high contrast. It’s a technique I always use to get the most out of a setup or give my client more choice

When you also add lower and higher angles you can see that with only one lightsetup you can get a lot of different looks.


In the following examples I’m using the #clickpropsbackdrops antique navy wall. The wall is blue and by using red in the clothing and accent light you can get a really cool effect.

A workflow that works

/in , , /by

We all struggle with the same thing…, laptop vs desktop.
Backup or not to backup… just kidding 😀

In this episode of digital classroom we talk about the workflow that works (for me).
And I tried to really go over every aspect from backups to tethering and making the iPad and MacBook work seamlessly together.

Didn’t expect it to be so much fun

/in /by

By now you just have heard about AI generated art. And let me start with saying that I don’t have an opinion yet. But let me explain how I feel.

The images in this blogpost were created with the beta from Adobe Firefly. And I’m using the text to images.

Now everything you see is about 90% spot on what I wanted to see. I didn’t play with other ai generators but for a beta it was just very cool to see the results coming in and being so close at first and almost perfect after just a few fine tuning commands and selections.

But although it’s almost exactly what I had in mind and i did the final touches in Lightroom it … Well just doesn’t feel like something I did. In other words I love the results and think it’s absolutely amazing that without a lot of fine tuning it actually gave me accurate results including variations but I still feel I didn’t do the creative work.

It feels like telling a painter exactly what I want and judging his work and correcting things with words which the painter changes for my final check. And when I’m satisfied I take his/hers work and make it my own with tinting….it just doesn’t feel like something I’m entitled to to show as my work.

That said. This is awesome to use for enhancing the mood in a real photo with ai generated scenery or added props. Or think about shooting a model with a stick and replacing that for a sword. The possibilities to use it really creativity in your own work is endless.

And for that purpose i really see a great future for creatives as soon as we find the balance to use ai in our work instead of just claiming we created something we did not but simply gave the order for.

So in my opinion Firefly did an awesome job in nailing exactly what I told it to do. Including mood and lighting. And i hope you guys like my twisted experiments 😉